Adding zones to an interactive channel

When you define interaction points for your visitors, you can further specialize those interaction points by adding them to zones. Each zone can have its own set of rules that determine how offers are presented to visitors. Use the Add Zone icon on the Interaction Points tab of an interactive channel to add a zone.

Click the Add Zone icon on the Interaction Points tab of an interactive channel.

The Add/Edit Zone dialog is displayed.

Enter a Name for the zone.

Enter a Description for the zone.

This description that you enter here is displayed on the Interaction Points tab of the interactive channel after you save the zone.

4. Click the Advanced Features link to display more settings that you can apply to the zone.

If you display the advanced features, you can determine the following settings for the zone you are adding or editing:

Learning Mode. The Learning Mode section specifies the rules by which learning is applied to the zone you are creating or editing. You can choose any of the following settings:

Inherit from Interactive Channel is the default setting, and tells Interact to use the learning mode that is specified for the interactive channel.

Use Marketer's Scores Only indicates that Interact uses only the marketer's scores for offer weighting.

Use Custom Learning Model uses a custom learning model that you can specify from the drop-down by name. If you have not defined any custom learning models for this interactive channel, this option is dimmed and cannot be selected.

For rule groups in this zone, resolve non-uniform learning rules by handles a situation where there is a conflict between how offers are sorted in a mixed-learning scenario, such as when some offers are suggested by sources in which learning is enabled, and other offers are suggested from sources where learning is disabled. For example, because each zone and each treatment rule group can define its own learning rule, and the rule that is defined for a treatment rule group can be different from the rule that is defined for the zone, the choices here determine how Interact resolves that conflict.

There are several different levels in Interact at which learning can be enabled or disabled: globally, for each interactive channel, for each treatment rule group, and for each zone. The choices in the For rule groups in this zone, resolve non-uniform learning rules by section provide the following solutions to the conflict:

Intermixing - Use Learning Mode for this zone (Default) indicates that the sequence of offers is selected based on the highest score first, regardless of the built-in learning score.

Prioritizing Non-learning Offers indicates that the sequence of offers selects non-learning offers first, followed by learning-based offers.

Prioritizing Learning Offers indicates that the sequence of offers selects learning offers first, followed by non-learning-based offers.

Prioritizing Non-learning Offers: Dedupe provides the same results as the Prioritizing Non-learning Offers option, but with duplicate offers removed when the same offer is provided by learning and non-learning sources.

Prioritizing Learning Offers: Dedupe provides the same results as the Prioritizing Learning Offers option, but with duplicate offers removed when the same offer is provided by learning and non-learning sources.

%Random specifies the chance that the returned offer is randomly selected, without considering scores.

Click Save and Return to go back to the Interaction Points tab or Save and Add Another to continue adding interaction points.

To edit the name or description of a zone, click the name of the zone on the Interaction Points tab.

To delete a zone, select the check box next to the zone on the Interaction Points tab and click the Delete Selected icon. You cannot delete a zone if it is used in a treatment rule.

For example, suppose that you have a zone with four rule groups:

Rule group Group1 has a learning module named LM1. LM1 contains offer1 with a score of 50%, and offer2 with a score 60%.

Rule group Group2 has no learning module.

Rule group Group3 is inheriting for the zone.

Rule group Group4 contains offer3 with a score of 65%, and offer4 with a score of 45%. No learning model is assigned to this rule group. The Use marketer score option is selected for this rule group.

In this example, offers for each particular zone will have a mix of offers evaluating the score using learning or no learning, depending on the configuration. The following list describes some scenarios:

If you select Intermixing - Use Learning Mode for this zone (Default) for this zone, the sequence of offers to be selected are based on the highest score first, regardless of the built-in learning score. Using the rule groups above, the sequence would be Offer3 weighted at 65%, Offer2 weighted at 60%, Offer1 weighted at 50%, and Offer4 weighted at 40%.

If you select Prioritizing Non-learning Offers for the zone, the sequence of offers is based on non-learning offers being selected first, so the sequence using the rule groups above would be offer3 non-learning, offer4 non-learning, offer1 with learning, and finally offer2.

If you select Learning - Prioritizing Learning Offers for this zone, the sequence of offers to be selected are based on selecting the learning offers first, so the sequence using the rule groups above would be offer1 Learning, offer2 Learning, offer3 non-learning, and finally offer4.

If you select Non learning - Prioritizing Non-learning Offers: Dedupe for the zone, the results would be the same as when you select Prioritizing Non-learning Offers; however, the results would remove duplicate offers.

If you select Prioritizing Learning Offers: Dedupe for the zone, the results would be the same as when you select Prioritizing Learning Offers; however, the results would remove duplicate offers.

If you specify a value for the Related to % Random field, that value would be used only when the learning mode is enabled. Offers other than the high priority would be prioritized according to the specified percentage.